Patterico’s Closing Argument: A Return To Constitutional Principles, Or: This Ain’t MY Trainwreck
A lot of people today are making “closing arguments” about how you should vote tomorrow. I won’t do it. I refuse to do it.
I am a passenger on a train being driven by the most reckless conductor I’ve ever encountered in my entire life. To make this as heavy-handed and obvious an analogy as humanly possible, I am going to name the driver “Mr. Electorate.” Clear enough? Good!
This conductor has worked himself into a situation where he has the kind of choice you usually see discussed in ethics textbooks or dorm-room bull sessions. He can plow directly into a large crowd of school children, which will certainly kill dozens of innocent young kids. Or, he can steer the train onto a different track, in which case he will kill a Nobel-winning scientist who appears to be, but may not be, on the verge of curing cancer.
I’ll leave it up to you whether Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump represents the kids or the scientist. One of the less attractive features of political debate on the Internet, especially approaching an election, is that people get wound up in silly analogies like this. The point of my analogy is that I don’t care which happens.
It’s not that I don’t care because I am not concerned about the kids, or because I don’t care about cancer. It’s not that I think one eventuality or the other isn’t just unthinkably awful. They both are! Of course they both are! But I’ll be honest with you: I don’t know which of these situations is worse, and I don’t feel qualified to choose.
Depending on who is on the train with me when I am asked to give advice to the conductor (I’ll call these people my “audience”), it might be tempting to make my choice based on what will please the audience. If my audience consists of parents of the schoolkids, it will be tempting for me to advise the conductor to kill the scientist. The more adamant and forceful I am about it, the more applause I will get. If I can vilify scientists as low-life scum who are all worthless and should probably be run over on general principles, whether the kids are killed or not, so much the better. If I can climb on a soapbox and sing about how the children are our future, I’ll be carried on the shoulders of these parents like a conquering hero.
And if my audience consisted of people with loved ones dying of cancer, it would be equally tempting for me to say the conductor should kill the kids. For the greater good! Hooray!
Either way, I’ll be blamed by someone -– even though I’m not the guy who got us into the situation. So you know what? I’m not going to decide. I’m going to let Mr. Electorate decide.
And guess what? That’s what he’s going to do anyway. You see, even though the audience will blame me for giving him bad advice, Mr. Electorate is going to do what he wants no matter what I say. He was always going to do what he wanted. He was never going to listen to me.
So I’m not giving him any advice. But it doesn’t mean I’m washing my hands of the whole thing. It means I’m concentrating on a Bigger Picture. As I stand in the middle of a train full of people who are busy arguing about which murderous track we should steer ourselves onto, I’m thinking about one thing and one thing only:
What can we do to keep this from happening again?
You see, Mr. Electorate drives the train. He has always driven the train. It is expected that he always will drive the train. But, you see, it kinda seems like Mr. Electorate is the problem here. It kinda seems like our first mistake was giving the keys to Mr. Electorate, without making sure he knew what he was doing, or setting up better rules to make sure he was going to steer us responsibly.
Am I saying that we snatch the keys from Mr. Electorate and hand them over to Mr. Dictator? Not at all. That guy has an even worse track record.
But I do suggest that, if we survive this calamity, our top priority should be to figure out why Mr. Electorate screwed up. How did he get us in this situation?
Allow me to cut the crap and stop talking in analogies.
What we face tomorrow is horrible by any definition. I believe the only way to respond is to re-focus ourselves on our fundamental principles. Why are we interested in politics anyway?
I don’t know about you, but the key principles for me are liberty, the free market, and the Constitution. When Ted Cruz bowed out, I decided that the time was ripe to begin assembling a movement of people who care about these principles: a group I call the “Constitutional Vanguard.” The idea is still in its formative stages, but my general idea is that we need to educate the public in these principles, and I want to do what I can to make that happen.
My key goal, therefore, is educating people on liberty, the free market, and the Constitution. And in creating structural reforms that promote decentralization, freedom, liberty . . . and ultimately, better, more responsible and restrained governance.
I know, I know. It sounds naive and idealistic and pointless in the era of Trump — a man who has taken over the only party that even pretended to stand for these principles, while also having a chance of winning. But I don’t think the era of Trump can possibly last forever . . . and it may be over tomorrow. When it ends, it will be time to pick up the pieces. I hope you’ll join me. If you’re interested, I discuss the idea in more detail here.
I’d love it if you’d join and share your ideas on how to prevent Mr. Electorate from doing this to us again.
[Cross-posted at RedState.]
If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.
Samuel Adams
We will get more socialism as the state collapses.
NJRob (7a7e3e) — 11/7/2016 @ 7:15 pmHillary is worse. If you can’t see that nothing I could say here would explain it to you. At this point either you know it or you don’t.
David Shawver (806c86) — 11/7/2016 @ 7:23 pmI think a Trump victory will tell the GOPe that they don’t need the social conservatives and should go after the “deplorables better”. “We shouldn’t allow that. Wouldn’t be prudent.”*
But that’s about all the ideology I’m spending on these two lemons. My real reason is aesthetic. I’m not voting for either because they both disgust me. Like two dog droppings on a sidewalk.
*Dan Garvey as Bush 41, narciso.
nk (dbc370) — 11/7/2016 @ 7:24 pm@Patterico:My key goal, therefore, is educating people on liberty, the free market, and the Constitution. And in creating structural reforms that promote decentralization, freedom, liberty . . . and ultimately, better, more responsible and restrained governance.
These are wonderful goals, but nothing comes of them if you cannot help win elections.
Pick Team Red or Team Blue, deliver votes, and then occasionally they will let you have something. If you’re as clever as the Left was, you can hollow out that Team from within and in the end take it over.
But nothing will happen without power. In a democracy that power is gained by sacrificing purity to elections. You can also try dictatorship but it usually turns out less well.
So if it’s so hard, you may be getting ready to ask me, how did America get founded at all?
By killing or driving away from our country about 1/3 of Americans who were not willing to get with the program.
That’s what happened. That’s what would have to happen again, if you can’t lower yourself to helping someone else win elections.
Gabriel Hanna (c791b9) — 11/7/2016 @ 7:28 pmWhat can we do to keep this from happening again?
ou have to make it easier for someone to run for president on little notice; to get into the race late after some votes have been cast; and for people to be able to draft someone. We are suffering from a shortage of candidates for president.
Sammy Finkelman (6d2ca9) — 11/7/2016 @ 7:34 pmwell we shall see, but the notions of principles, like the ones that sustained thatcher through the horrible heath period, and the wilson-callaghan interregnum, that challenged nixons detente abroad and stagnation at home, is appealing,
narciso (d1f714) — 11/7/2016 @ 7:36 pmIt’s not at all clear whether Trump winning or Trump losing will sink Trumpism faster. If he loses we’ll have years and years of the “Kennedy would have got us out of VietNam” argument.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 11/7/2016 @ 7:37 pmLast I heard, the “Constitutional Vanguard” you put together was a Facebook group. I didn’t understand that choice; I would’ve tried to put together a forum/BBS instead. Is that still going on? I don’t think I’ve gotten emails about it lately.
CayleyGraph (353727) — 11/7/2016 @ 7:38 pmI am in New a Hampshire set to volunteer all day tomorrow as a poll-watcher for the Republican National Lawyers Association. I will help make sure that Mr. Electorate speaks clearly. If he says “Trump” then I will be happy for the huge potential upsides that Hillary Clinton rejects: originalist judges, decisively reversing illegal immigration, reducing burdensome regulations and taxes that burden freedom, pro-life policies, smashing ISIS but otherwise avoiding meddlesome wars, replacing Obamacare with block grants so states can help people who really need it, stopping our national descent into bankruptcy, and a thousand other things that Hillary Clinton has no inclination to achieve. None of it may come to pass in a Trump administration, but all of it may well. That people like Patterico and Redstate are rejecting such a bright future FOR ALL OF US in some vain hope of teaching some sort of lesson is tragic, and more than tragic if it causes HRC to win this election.
Andrew (b2767f) — 11/7/2016 @ 7:41 pmStart a new party. You can’t call it the Constitution Party because that’s already taken by super-Trumpers, but something harking back to core values might work. Tea Party seems a possible choice. Federalist Party has a foundation, too, although you probably would want to update their platform.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 11/7/2016 @ 7:42 pmThe only reason to vote for Trump is Hillary.
The only reason to vote for Hillary is Trump.
Which is ultimately why I voted for Johnson.
kishnevi (3ebfe9) — 11/7/2016 @ 7:42 pmI see that RCP has it 272-266, with Hillary narrowly getting New Hampshire (courtesy of one outlier poll).
Wouldn’t this be fun if it came down to a Florida recount?
Kevin M (25bbee) — 11/7/2016 @ 7:44 pmNot having had the energy or time to set up an alternate forum, I invited people to join a Facebook group as one way of interacting with one another. I do have ambitions of setting up a forum but have limited expertise and time to figure it out.
Right now it’s a mailing list, which has been neglected when I got slammed at work and got out of the habit, and what I tried to do was give people facts and resources they could use to educate people. Eventually I was hoping to organize more, to perhaps do things like evaluate state legislation for fealty to constitutional principles (for example), but it would take some proactive action from the group to help out.
Patterico (115b1f) — 11/7/2016 @ 7:45 pmHonestly, I think getting the group together is the top thing, and then I hope to get feedback. Right now there are about 580 members, but I can always use more! If we got to 1000 we might have a real critical mass.
Patterico (115b1f) — 11/7/2016 @ 7:45 pmGabriel, your position comes across very much as, the principled position is to abandon one’s principles.
I fully agree with what Narciso said at comment 6.
kishnevi (3ebfe9) — 11/7/2016 @ 7:46 pmYup. But if he wins, we’ll have “Kennedy got us out of Vietnam” even though we’re still in . . . because Trump lies and his biggest fans always buy it.
Patterico (115b1f) — 11/7/2016 @ 7:47 pmKevin@12
On behalf of Narciso and myself (and ropelight,wherever he is in cyberspace at the moment), a big loud NO!
kishnevi (3ebfe9) — 11/7/2016 @ 7:49 pmBeing a hanging chad was no fun in 2000. It would be worse now.
kishnevi (3ebfe9) — 11/7/2016 @ 7:50 pmSleep well tonight, Patrick. Everything will have changed by tomorrow. And there’s nothing you could have done or can do about it.
Lynne (712b04) — 11/7/2016 @ 7:51 pmonly someone who didn’t suffer the 37 day siege would consider that a just course of action, I could respond with one of karnak’s witticisms,
narciso (d1f714) — 11/7/2016 @ 7:52 pmTrump lies and his biggest fans always buy it.
Hillary lies and the media all calls it Truth. And being Truth, her fans just accept it.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 11/7/2016 @ 7:54 pmI think culture is more important than politics. The Declaration and Constitution came out of a certain culture, a culture that had much influence in religious liberty, individual opportunity and autonomy, and expected little from govt except not to be oppressed by it.
That culture is gone. My “political theory” beliefs are probably very similar, and they are self-evident to those in the culture at the time.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 11/7/2016 @ 7:56 pmWhen one needs to try to find a convincing argument that boys and girls are equal in human dignity,
but not equivalent in point by point characteristics,
because it is no longer self-evident
it is hard to get anywhere.
Some get it. Some don’t.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 11/7/2016 @ 7:58 pmKevin M (25bbee) — 11/7/2016 @ 7:44 pm
That’s not enough.
Recounts in Florida (without chads) AND two or three other states, including Utah, which if it, and other recounts, go just the right way, could throw the election into the House of Representatives.
Some of the recounts just for show.
And some campaigning to switch the votes of Electors.
Maybe an appeal to the Supreme Court, but this time there are an even number of Justices.
Sammy Finkelman (6d2ca9) — 11/7/2016 @ 7:59 pmIt’s not all bleak, MD. There’s a Young Life chapter at my daughter’s public high school. (She changed her mind about going to the Catholic school at the last minute.) It’s not for us but its existence, with announcement of its meetings over the school’s PA system, is encouraging.
nk (dbc370) — 11/7/2016 @ 8:06 pmA Trump Administration is for four years.
Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 11/7/2016 @ 8:12 pmBut an illary Administration will last for a lifetime!
As usual you are a arrogant putz.After tomorrow no matter who wins you will be forgotten . Ta ta
otto (6617e7) — 11/7/2016 @ 8:13 pmTrue that, nk
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 11/7/2016 @ 8:18 pmCubs win the world serious and Young Life in Chicago schools
I bet your daughter would be a hit, reading in the original Greek
Ta ta indeed, since that is your last comment here. I have tolerated you far, far too long. Bye now.
Patterico (115b1f) — 11/7/2016 @ 8:20 pmIt’s true that I can’t change it.
But, um . . .
The election only starts tomorrow morning. It won’t be over by the time I wake up. You know?
Patterico (115b1f) — 11/7/2016 @ 8:22 pmEducate the Public on principles? SMH. Let me know how that works out for you.
Hi ho hi ho (42bad1) — 11/7/2016 @ 8:24 pmthis was the fundamental problem, what was the fundamental framework that the party was willing to stand on, on trade and immigration it was practically quicksand, and you know what happens when you’re in quicksand,
narciso (d1f714) — 11/7/2016 @ 8:27 pm#22 yup.
My daughter has to pee with mentally ill boys cuz their feelings or something and allegedly normal adults seem fine with it.
I gotta bake cakes for people I don’t want to cuz the Civil Rights Act forces me to? Seriously?
Fix these issues first, worry about grandiose principles next.
Hi ho hi ho (42bad1) — 11/7/2016 @ 8:28 pm10. Kevin M (25bbee) — 11/7/2016 @ 7:42 pm
The Whig Party, maybe, which was the opposition party to the Democratic Party for around 20 years.
Sammy Finkelman (6d2ca9) — 11/7/2016 @ 8:29 pmExactly. If you have no idea what you stand for, that’s when it seems like a good idea to, say, expand Medicaid in your state, because HELPING PEOPLE!
Patterico (115b1f) — 11/7/2016 @ 8:30 pmHeh! She’s in Sunday school at our church and the classes there are held in English. Hers is an assimilated generation. On the other hand, we have a new deacon and part of the liturgy is now repeated in Korean in addition to English and Greek.
nk (dbc370) — 11/7/2016 @ 8:30 pmGuess how I know that’s wrong?
Because I have principles.
Patterico (115b1f) — 11/7/2016 @ 8:30 pmOnly one of the major candidates running will allow you to hold those lessons and educate. The other will outlaw any sort of instruction that doesn’t conform to her notions.
One candidate at least professes to support justices that will uphold liberty, free markets, and the Constitution. The other has all but guaranteed that we she be put in a position to pick Justices, the Supreme Court would be forever lost and liberty, free markets, and the Constitution would be figments of days gone by.
There’s only one choice this election. It may have stinky underpants and eat it’s boogers, but at least there’s a chance of salvaging the Republic.
SaveFarris (fb4883) — 11/7/2016 @ 8:31 pmYour principles of Liberty, Free Trade, and the Constitution are IMHO where your proposal will fail, because a heck of a lot of people have serious issues with “Free Trade”. They have a point. Free trade with unlike economies has proven disadvantageous, not just on economic grounds but on geostrategic and national security grounds. The rise of China is the glaring case in point.
If you’re serious about including free trade with unlike economies, IMHO you’ll need to make the case why it’s worthwhile, both in economic and national security terms. If you can’t make the case, it sounds very much like dogma, and dogma is always a turnoff no matter the context.
Arizona CJ (b4cd1f) — 11/7/2016 @ 8:32 pmVictor Davis Hanson and Dennis Praeger made a very convincing argument nevertrumpers are more concerned about their social standing in their elitist circle of friends than in actually producing good for the nation. Quite good discussion.
Hi ho hi ho (42bad1) — 11/7/2016 @ 8:34 pmI can make the case. Start with China. How is it a “glaring case in point” that trade with China is bad?
Patterico (115b1f) — 11/7/2016 @ 8:34 pmAnd I said the “free market” but certainly free trade is a part of that.
Patterico (115b1f) — 11/7/2016 @ 8:35 pmA lot of Trumpers are more concerned about their standing among fellow conservatives than anything else.
Including a lot of people who make their living through writing or broadcasting to a conservative audience that they need to keep happy.
This is not my living, so it’s easier for me to say what I really think. There are DEFINITELY some writers and broadcasters who have sold out. Being a Trumper is WAY more lucrative than not being one.
Patterico (115b1f) — 11/7/2016 @ 8:37 pmtherein lies the problem, free trade, has become cartelized, subject to cronyism, when it comes to the pla ruling class, they see the robber barron era, as the model, complete with the attendant tariff walls, although they didn’t a laogai in 19th century America,
narciso (d1f714) — 11/7/2016 @ 8:37 pm#37, what is wrong from a principles perspective?
Forcing me to bake the cake? Or my refusing on my own grounds?
I would hope a freedom lover understands we should be free to discriminate in all our private matters even in business.
I defer to civil rights being those issues pertaining to government function. So if Govt has a bakery, they can impose. But my bakery, no.
Hi ho hi ho (42bad1) — 11/7/2016 @ 8:39 pmThe so-called “robber baron era” was one of the most prosperous in America’s history. Three cheers for the so-called “robber barons”!
Patterico (115b1f) — 11/7/2016 @ 8:39 pmno I don’t think the social dissaprobation with being even willing to consider trump publically is high, and I illustrated the problem with china,
narciso (d1f714) — 11/7/2016 @ 8:40 pmForcing you to bake the cake. Government has no business doing that. But I know that because it is part of my core belief structure. People who make up their policies on an ad hoc basis, like Gary Johnson, have no idea why it’s wrong to make you bake the cake — and so they will, because they think it sounds like the nicer position.
Patterico (115b1f) — 11/7/2016 @ 8:41 pm#43
Oh wow, so Victor Davis Hanson and Dennis Prager are just a couple of hacks playing to the grandstands, huh? (ROTFLMAO)
Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 11/7/2016 @ 8:41 pmI was talking to someone else when I asked about China, although I am happy to hear your thoughts too, which I cannot find in this thread at least.
Patterico (115b1f) — 11/7/2016 @ 8:42 pmsimple reciprocity should be touchstone in the trade of persons as well as goods, but that doesn’t seem to be the practical application,
narciso (d1f714) — 11/7/2016 @ 8:42 pmI did not say that. Do not put words in my mouth. I don’t like that.
Patterico (115b1f) — 11/7/2016 @ 8:43 pmI have a MASSIVE “trade deficit” with Costco. Does it make me poorer or better off?
Patterico (115b1f) — 11/7/2016 @ 8:43 pmLike Andrew at #9, I will be in NH all day tomorrow as a lawyer poll watcher.
The odd thing is how little I care about this election. My state has some vucious GOP infighting, made worse for a prominent Republican stabbing a supporter in the back (and raising about a million dollars to do so). I do not have a dog in tomorrow’s fight: the Trump voters have their own agenda that does not include over-educated coastal denizens. I am not interested in the purity fights, the party unity fights, or whatever.
bridget (37b281) — 11/7/2016 @ 8:44 pmnow there is a difference between companies and countries, one uses the leverage of the markets, one uses the leverage of the state,
narciso (d1f714) — 11/7/2016 @ 8:44 pmThere is little I hate more on the Internet than the guy who says “OH, SO [INSERT DISTORTION OF WHAT YOU SAID HERE] HUH? BWAHAHAHA!”
Patterico (115b1f) — 11/7/2016 @ 8:45 pmPatterico, if Trump wins all the bitc@@$ will line for Trump to grab their pu$$ies, especially the McConnell and Ryan types.
The Harvard boys will co opt his success as they did Reagan especially the Goldman boys who will turn right quick Trumpers in no time.
If he loses, the same parasite class will seek to destroy him.
Principles are not a strong suit of those who make a living in Media, Govt, Banking, Education, and Govt Bureaucracy.
Hi ho hi ho (42bad1) — 11/7/2016 @ 8:46 pmWe are always better off without tariffs whether the other country imposes them on us or not.
See the Petition of the Candlemakers.
Patterico (115b1f) — 11/7/2016 @ 8:47 pmWell Hanson and Praeger are not Trumpers and are the two most decent men I hear from on these matters. So while I would not put words in mouth I interpreted your comment as besmirching them as money hos on the Trump train.
Hi ho hi ho (42bad1) — 11/7/2016 @ 8:50 pm#58 The Ricardian model does not work on trade when infinite production exists on one side ,,,, at least not until the loser side becomes sufficiently poor to win back the work.
Hi ho hi ho (42bad1) — 11/7/2016 @ 8:52 pmyes, in the long run, as keynes would put it, we must reformulate free trade to incorporate these conditions,
narciso (d1f714) — 11/7/2016 @ 8:53 pmNope.
Patterico (115b1f) — 11/7/2016 @ 8:53 pmAgain: I sell Costco nothing. That makes me a winner, not a loser.
We WIN when we get cheap stuff from China.
If they gave us all our electronic goods for FREE instead of very cheaply, would we be poorer or richer?
Patterico (115b1f) — 11/7/2016 @ 8:54 pmBut we don’t get everything for free. We issue IOU s people expect to collect on.
Cheap only works when you can sell something else to others that allows you to buy.
Hi ho hi ho (42bad1) — 11/7/2016 @ 8:57 pmand what happens to our industrial base in the mean time, electronics, textiles, automobiles, et al,
narciso (d1f714) — 11/7/2016 @ 9:00 pmPatterico, I didn’t “say” you said Hanson and Prager are hacks.
But you inferred that they might be among the conservative media you believe are incentivized to support Trump.
I happen to believe that Hanson and Prager support Trump because they believe he’s a preferable choice to illary. I don’t believe they’re incentivized by keeping their respective audiences happy.
Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 11/7/2016 @ 9:01 pmThe Chinese invest in our assets: golf courses, hotels, real estate, movie houses, etc. And they invest in U.S. financial assets as well. The net effect is to reallocate money from export businesses into these other businesses that produce goods for domestic use in the U.S.
Meanwhile, the standard of living of the poor increases dramatically as they pay less for many, many goods.
Patterico (115b1f) — 11/7/2016 @ 9:05 pmhi ho – you are way off base attempting to make folks like Pat (and myself) as incapable of creating subsets within any given group. VDH and DR are personal heroes of intellect/thought to me. But, sure, they would also fit in the larger group of nevers.
As Pat has been pleading for months now, look to principles! Don’t get caught up in the shallow and ignorant arguments over personality.
Ed from SFV (3400a5) — 11/7/2016 @ 9:05 pmYes, you did, in Internet-asshole-speak.
Patterico (115b1f) — 11/7/2016 @ 9:05 pmResources get reallocated to other businesses, such as high tech, where Americans are capable of meeting consumer desires at the prices consumers want to pay.
The free market economy is always changing, reacting to new preferences.
Patterico (115b1f) — 11/7/2016 @ 9:07 pmDixville Notch, New Hampshire has just opened its polling station.
Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 11/7/2016 @ 9:08 pmThe madness begins. (LOL)
respectfully it’s an unsustainable arrangement, somewhat like the japan miti-keiretsu model writ large, and what happens when it winds down to chinese internal politics, with their burgeoning military, wilhemine germany is an answer,
narciso (d1f714) — 11/7/2016 @ 9:08 pmNot sure what FDi has anything to do trade models other than it is an effect, not a cause, of a wealth creating nation.
That is assuming by wealth we don’t confuse consumption as a definition of wealth as opposed to inventory and productive capacity.
Hi ho hi ho (42bad1) — 11/7/2016 @ 9:10 pmI happen to disagree, narciso, and I think when you learn more about the free market you’ll see what I mean.
Government hampering the market economy, which is what you are calling for, never satisfies more preferences. All it does is prevent a certain number of transactions that people otherwise voluntarily wanted to make from happening. When you learn first principles, this is easier to see clearly.
Patterico (115b1f) — 11/7/2016 @ 9:11 pmThe dollars are not leaving the country, for the most part. They are being channeled into different areas. Less to export businesses, more to domestic.
Patterico (115b1f) — 11/7/2016 @ 9:12 pmPatterico, is it your opinion that Hanson and Prager are voting for Trump due to personal conviction? Or do you believe they have sold out?
Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 11/7/2016 @ 9:13 pm@71- As Hooterville and Petticoat Junction goes, so goes the nation.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 11/7/2016 @ 9:17 pmI’m describing the way china’s system operates, against a ruling class that doesn’t recognize american interests, a similar pattern underpins our middle eastern arrangements,
narciso (d1f714) — 11/7/2016 @ 9:17 pmI don’t really listen to Prager or read Hanson. Not being that familiar with either, I will assume that they are acting out of personal conviction until shown otherwise. I would like it if they had the decency to think the same of people like me, rather than sneering at my position as being elitist — but I haven’t seen their arguments and don’t know if they are painting with a brush broad enough to cover people like me or not.
Patterico (115b1f) — 11/7/2016 @ 9:17 pm# again Patterico, the Ricardian model you espouse (the Austrians) breaks down totally when one side literally has the productive capacity and cost advantages to meet all needs. It leaves the debtor nation in a creativity scramble to find something to produce which the other nation can not do cheaper.
Be like your employer hiring a new lawyer every day to replace you, you reinvent yourself under a new expertise, and he replaces you again, and again, and again. All the while you are forced to dump your knowledge on the newer better you.
Leaves you screwed be the replacements in your place.
Friction in these models works to create wealth. free traders hate this truth.
Hi ho hi ho (42bad1) — 11/7/2016 @ 9:18 pmThey recognize the green of our money. The thing about the free market is that it has a way of rendering less relevant the political differences.
This is all mostly covered by Adam Smith. I have no idea why the “ideas” of a buffoon like Trump get more attention than those of Smith or Mises, who actually knew what they were taking about (Mises more than Smith).
Patterico (115b1f) — 11/7/2016 @ 9:19 pm“Naive and idealistic and pointless in the era of Trump”????
No more condescending words have been written here in months.
How about “Naive and idealistic and pointless in the era of the modern welfare that that has empowered a ever growing segment of the population to begin their political questions with — “Which party puts more money in my EBT account?”
The era of Trump is a pushback against the growth and gross excess of the modern welfare state and crony capitalism. One party promotes both as a basis for its own perpetuation and growth. The other, not so much.
Trump didn’t “take over the party” — the party looked to Trump as an alternative to the slate of candidates who represented the FAILURES of the Party’s leaders to address their issues.
I supported Ted Cruz as did you. He was a horrible candidate — the smartest guy in the contest, and likely the most effective occupant of the office — but unwilling to make smart choices to run a winning campaign. Nope, he had to remain true to his principles, and locked himself out of the room.
Politics is a show. Trump is a showman.
The rest of the slate of candidates were clowns who had disappointed regular folks way too often.
shipwreckedcrew (56b591) — 11/7/2016 @ 9:21 pmhayek as ricardian, I don’t think really applies, they were confronting the german historical school of which I have referred before,
narciso (d1f714) — 11/7/2016 @ 9:24 pmFree trade is like a religion to folks. One it does not exist. Two even if it did, your job is to create friction on the supply side to create Economic rents which you can role into new industry and technologies. That is the engine to wealth. Not buying cheaper garbage at Walmart in exchange for IOUs. That just makes us fatter, not wealthier.
Hi ho hi ho (42bad1) — 11/7/2016 @ 9:24 pmFirst of all, it is the nature of a free market economy that people who can’t produce something at a cost that consumers will pay, has to find something else to do. This is the “creative destruction” that allocates limited resources in a way that satisfies consumer preferences.
But more fundamentally, you’re simply misunderstanding the nature of comparative advantage. The magic of comparative advantage is not dependent on the notion that one party will always have more skill or efficiency in the absolute than another. It is that, even when one party is better and more efficient at doing two things, the less efficient party can STILL have a comparative advantage in one of those things.
I could walk you through the math, but it’s an amazing and wonderful thing. There is a place for everyone in the market economy.
Patterico (115b1f) — 11/7/2016 @ 9:24 pmYes, that is true. Is it GOOD?
If you’re bound and determined to applaud that, you go right ahead.
Patterico (115b1f) — 11/7/2016 @ 9:26 pmRicardians and Austrians are one in the same. Work through the concepts and they preach identical governing principles.
Hi ho hi ho (42bad1) — 11/7/2016 @ 9:27 pmPatterico (115b1f) — 11/7/2016 @ 8:54 pm
Or if it wasn’t supplied by anyone.
We would be richer, but the people who made their money from electronics would be poorer until or unless they found somethingelse, and since most peole ae not working att their most economically productive job possible, it could be more.
For some reason they alwsys focus on what necessarily must be a minority and try to say everybody loses.
The same thing is true with the labor market. Cheap labor makes everybody richer. Zero labor (automation) even more so. The only possible valid argument here is cultural not economic.
Sammy Finkelman (6d2ca9) — 11/7/2016 @ 9:27 pmThe road to wealth, in an unhampered market economy that is not hamstrung by government regulations such as tariffs, is to satisfy consumer preferences at a cost consumers are willing to pay. That is how scarce resources are allocated in a way that makes for the greatest amount of happiness.
Patterico (115b1f) — 11/7/2016 @ 9:28 pmit really doesn’t seem so,
https://www.mruniversity.com/courses/great-economists-classical-economics-and-its-forerunners/hayek-ricardo-effect
narciso (d1f714) — 11/7/2016 @ 9:29 pmIndeed. Just like the people who made the carriages pulled by horses became poorer when the automobile was invented. They had to find something else to do. Just like the candlemakers have to find something else to do if the damned sun is supplying so much free light that candles are not in enough demand.
The solution is not to ban cars or force people to draw their shades.
The solution is to get government the h-e-double-hockey-sticks out of the way, so that the reallocation can be done as quickly and painlessly as possible.
Patterico (115b1f) — 11/7/2016 @ 9:31 pmPatterico, I studied this for 6 years and practiced it for 2. I know the diff between comparative and competitive advantage. Ricardian models break down totally if one side can produce enough for both sides all that can be imagined of need for both sides. Kind of explains why our manufacturing is going away. Sadly Perot had it right in 1992.
No such thing as free trade and certainly not if you want us to live better than 3 billion Chinese and Indians. Graduate Degree holders don’t seem to grasp this at times, me being one of them.
Hi ho hi ho (42bad1) — 11/7/2016 @ 9:35 pmOpponents of free trade seem to all have a handbook where they bring up David Ricardo by name and slam him. But what, specifically, are you claiming that he said that is wrong?
He was not right about everything, you know.
But he was right about comparative advantage.
Here’s the simple example. Michael Jordan is 100x better at basketball than his gardener, and also three times better and faster at mowing his lawn than his gardener.
Should Michael Jordan do both? Or should he play basketball to earn money to pay someone to mow his lawn, even if he would be better at mowing his lawn himself? Which is more efficient and builds more wealth for Jordan?
Patterico (115b1f) — 11/7/2016 @ 9:35 pmTrade friction is good if we can keep nascent industries and growing ones out of foreign nations. Minute they leave ……
Hi ho hi ho (42bad1) — 11/7/2016 @ 9:36 pm46.The so-called “robber baron era” was one of the most prosperous in America’s history. Three cheers for the so-called “robber barons”!
Ask some of the oldtimers and their families from Pgh still around about those times and you’d get mixed reviews– and plenty of coughing. Frick, Mellon and Carnegie liked to have their names on a lot of things back in the day, except paychecks.
“Where the Allegheny meets the O-hi-o; Pittsburgh! Pittsburgh!” – ‘Hail To Pitt’- University of Pittsburgh Fight Song
DCSCA (797bc0) — 11/7/2016 @ 9:37 pmI’m going to ask for an answer to my #93, because that is the nub of the question.
Patterico (115b1f) — 11/7/2016 @ 9:37 pmPoint being Michael Jordan can do both and leave the Gardener unemployed.
So what does the Gardener do?
Again, I know what the Ricardian Model is. Got it.
Hi ho hi ho (42bad1) — 11/7/2016 @ 9:39 pmThe USA enjoys one crucial economic sledgehammer: Food production. You can’t eat textiles or sneakers.
Ed from SFV (3400a5) — 11/7/2016 @ 9:44 pmagain we are using josephson’s shorthand, but mid to late 19th century industrialists, my notion is that was the only model of capitalism that was described in marxists tracts, but you have the further blending of military and corporate power, in china’s current model, somewhat like wilhemine germany,
narciso (d1f714) — 11/7/2016 @ 9:44 pmWhen one side has so much excess productive capacity it will continue to suck away the jobs. If they can meet your demand and their demand across X many demand vectors, you are left sucking your thumb. Eventually they don’t need you cuz you have nothing of value but an IOU. And the have so many of those they don’t want any cuz u make nothing they value.
This is why folks worry about China simply not wanting our debt.
You need friction in a trade model to work to your advantage when you are the “high labor cost” nation. Germany good example and even they struggle with it.
Hi ho hi ho (42bad1) — 11/7/2016 @ 9:45 pmWhy don’t you explain what Ricardo would say about the Michael Jordan situation?
Patterico (115b1f) — 11/7/2016 @ 9:48 pmIt doesn’t have to be good or bad because its a FACT.
GOP wanna-be Presidents ignore that fact at their own peril.
Hence Cruz is at home in Texas preparing to return to the Senate.
The biggest problem the GOP encountered in the Primary season is that 13 or 14 knuckleheads couldn’t figure out that they were collectively emasculating themselves while one guy not part of their cabal shot spitballs at them from the outside. The Party structure needed to knock heads in late 2014 and convince 10 of them they would never win the nomination so they shouldn’t try.
The Dems “cleared the field” except for one old hippie socialist who wouldn’t leave, and he still almost spoiled the picnic for them.
The GOP field should have been Rubio v. Cruz v. Kasich. They had 3 distinct constituencies, and had the GOP united behind one of them they could have squeezed Trump out of the race. The party created a situation where someone with 28% could be King.
Maybe that lesson will be remembered in the future — if there is a functioning party left that can get more than 210 electoral votes once the Dems are finished populating Arizona, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Nebraska and Iowa with another 10 million Hispanic voters over the next 8 years.
shipwreckedcrew (56b591) — 11/7/2016 @ 9:49 pmwell we discover that doc brown was a pantomine horse, and it was the power of money and status, that toppled him,
I think the lack of an adequate philosophical foundation was the problem,
narciso (d1f714) — 11/7/2016 @ 9:52 pma thought exercise, what if germany had adopted austrian principles from the beginning, and the us had chosen the german historicists,
narciso (d1f714) — 11/7/2016 @ 9:55 pmExcept that you don’t take into consideration that the Chinese aren’t playing on an equal playing field. They artificially peg their currency to our own instead of letting it adjust as it would with a nation exporting so many goods. They also have a population that is vastly greater than our own with a huge surplus in labor. That labor will do any job they are capable of at a rate cheaper than our own.
What would you have our people do when the skilled work is outsourced and the unskilled labor doesn’t pay enough to support their family?
NJRob (a07d2e) — 11/7/2016 @ 9:56 pm@ Patterico;
Yes, you did say “Free Market”, not “Free Trade” as I wrongly claimed. Mea culpa on that.
China: China’s rise as a superpower is based mostly on its economy. Its economy is based largely on export manufacturing and running a trade surplus – of which the majority is with the US. The more the Chinese economy grows, the more powerful China becomes militarily. And China has proven itself aggressive and expansionist.
For those who think that trade makes war less likely, history shows otherwise. To name just a few examples, on Dec 6th, 1941, Japan’s largest trading partner was the US. On August 30th, 1939, Germany’s two largest trading partners were France and the UK. And Germany’s largest trading partner on June 21st, 1941 (the day before Operation Barbarosa), was the Soviet Union.
BTW, I may be right or I may be wrong, but I’ve being saying the above for a lot longer than Trump, so he’s not the reason I hold these views.
Arizona CJ (b4cd1f) — 11/7/2016 @ 10:04 pmHi ho hi ho,
You say you understand the Ricardian model, but then you say things that suggest you don’t. That’s why I’d like to hear you explain how Ricardo would answer the Michael Jordan question. Not whether he’s right, but what he would say.
To me, it’s kind of like when the car rental person told Seinfeld she understood what a reservation was.
Patterico (115b1f) — 11/7/2016 @ 10:05 pmit’s a little more complicated then that, between nations,
narciso (d1f714) — 11/7/2016 @ 10:09 pmYou seem to have this idea that trade is a zero-sum game, and that a “trade deficit” makes the country with the deficit poor and the country with a surplus rich. But that’s just not true. A trade deficit does NOT by itself make a country poorer. It can, in fact, make that country richer.
I’m attempting to walk through the logic of comparative advantage with Hi Ho Hi Ho. This link has a pretty good summary of how one party can be better than another party at LITERALLY EVERYTHING, and yet the party who is worse at everything still has a COMPARATIVE advantage in the thing that the superior party is “less better” at doing.
It’s counterintuitive and yet if you do the math, it works. I promise it does.
There is a place for everyone in the division of labor and the market economy.
Patterico (115b1f) — 11/7/2016 @ 10:11 pmThe key insight is opportunity cost. It might be that Jordan is better at mowing his lawn than the gardener, but he will pay his gardener anyway because his opportunity cost — in foregone basketball revenue or even leisure time which he considers more valuable BECAUSE of his huge comparative advantage in basketball — is so high, it’s not worth it for him to mow his lawn. (Unless he enjoys it, as many do, but that is another analysis altogther.)
Comparative advantage does NOT mean that the guy who is better at everything simply does that all by himself and drives the other person to ruin.
Patterico (115b1f) — 11/7/2016 @ 10:15 pmAnd if you want to say that China is trying to unreasonably drive us into ruin even though it is irrational and harms them economically, you still have to explain why they invest in us so heavily, as I mentioned above, with golf courses, movie chains, real estate, etc. etc. etc.
Patterico (115b1f) — 11/7/2016 @ 10:16 pmPatterico (115b1f) — 11/7/2016 @ 10:11 pm
This is exactly the way Donald Trump sounds, e.g. “lost jobs” and since he’s held his views so long, foing back to the Reagan administration, this is probably a fallacy he genuinely believes in.
You can talk about a “division of labor” only in retrospect. It makes no more sense to speak of a division of labor than to speak of a division of money, or of wealth.
While there is an argument that comparitive advantage still applies even if there is one party that is NOT more efficient at doing anything at all, that only applies if the more efficient party can’t do everything by itself. Now it can’t, but only because there is no fixed amount of goods and services to be produced. At least so long as money to pay for things isn’t limited.
Sammy Finkelman (6d2ca9) — 11/7/2016 @ 10:33 pmYou try doing “everything” by yourself. You’ll be dead in three days.
Patterico (115b1f) — 11/7/2016 @ 10:35 pmYou’d benefit from reading up on Austrian economics. I don’t say this to be insulting. Everyone would. I did.
I’ll be talking about this more this month, guaranteed.
Patterico (115b1f) — 11/7/2016 @ 10:36 pmTell me more,
Patterico (115b1f) — 11/7/2016 @ 10:37 pmPatterico (115b1f) — 11/7/2016 @ 10:35 pm
I don’t think that’s a point. Robinson Crusoe, or rather the person stranded on an island on whom he was based on, did. Of course he inherited stuff to start with.
People on a ship must, for a while, produce everything on their own. So also with astronuats, maybe.
A city under siege can last a lomg time, especially if not bombarded by modern artillery or bombed, with the big problem being food.
Pitcairn Island produced everything by itself for along time (or almost everything) What it didn’t do well is good goverrnment. Greenland did until the colony disappeared probably because of bad weather. Maybe they joined the newly arrived Eskimos.
The reak point is that there’s no low limit of goods and services that can be sold.
Sammy Finkelman (6d2ca9) — 11/7/2016 @ 10:54 pmDo you have some sources or links on Austrian economics to recommend that deal with this point about division?
Sammy Finkelman (6d2ca9) — 11/7/2016 @ 10:57 pmwell we can’t just be a service economy, that is the point, and increasingly that’s where we are, and with china, sometimes it’s not just about economics, as it was with germany,
narciso (d1f714) — 11/7/2016 @ 11:00 pm@kishnevi:Gabriel, your position comes across very much as, the principled position is to abandon one’s principles.
I fully agree with what Narciso said at comment 6.
Party of Stupid can’t distinguish ends from means.
You don’t have to abandon principles if you follow my advice. What you do is act in ways that are realistically more likely to see them implemented. Why is this hard? Party of Stupid.
20 years ago the Democrats had a President who made gay marriage illegal for Federal purposes. People who supported gay marriage did not fold their hands and sit home. Instead, they helped that President’s party acquire more power, and gay marriage is now the law everywhere; not only legal but affirmatively protected under the civil rights framework.
People in favor of free trade and limited government could do the same, but won’t. Party of Stupid.
Why can’t people like myself and
Gabriel Hanna (c791b9) — 11/8/2016 @ 6:28 amYou know who’s got pure principles? Libertarians. So pure that in this hobo-fight-in-the-light-of-a-burning-dumpster of an election, they field two liberal former Republicans and are all the way up to 3% of the vote, after what a half-century of being third party.
#NeverTrump principles are going to make small-government conservatives into the same thing.
Libertarian ideas occasionally gain traction among the Republican party, but Libertarians don’t reliably deliver votes to Republicans so they are not an influential part of that party. They prefer to stay home, keep their hands clean and bongs loaded.
Gabriel Hanna (c791b9) — 11/8/2016 @ 6:34 amIf you don’t vote for strep, you’re voting for staph.
Nick M. (d6362a) — 11/8/2016 @ 8:10 amNo thanks.
Reject the two manifestly unfit choices.
#121, Nick M,
You’re still going to get one of them, even if you “reject” both of them.
Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 11/8/2016 @ 8:15 amYou are describing groups, not individuals. But yes, very resourceful individuals might be able to survive at subsistence level, and small groups might be able to survive with a horrible standard of living. But the larger the group and the more trade, the higher the standard of living because of the division of labor, which makes everybody wealthier. I’ll talk more about this and provide links later this month.
Patterico (3c07f4) — 11/8/2016 @ 8:27 amWhat are people who support free trade supposed to do today, Gabriel, if they are being pragmatic? You tell me.
Patterico (3c07f4) — 11/8/2016 @ 8:32 am@Patterico: You know already I agree with pretty much everything you are saying here about free markets, comparative advantage, free trade, etc.
I don’t believe one progressive inhabits this comments section. But yet hardly anyone agrees with you about it.
Do you see why I keep saying that winning elections has to come before educating people about free trade, free market principles?
Gay marriage and other social issues were shoved down the electorates throat by people who one elections, and now most people are finding they’re more or less okay with it, though it’s hard on the florists and bakers.
I’m afraid free trade and free markets has to gain acceptance in a similar way. Proponents have been trying to educate the public on this for 250 years now.
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 11/8/2016 @ 8:34 am@Patterico:What are people who support free trade supposed to do today, Gabriel, if they are being pragmatic? You tell me.
Same thing people who wanted gay marriage legal had to do. Hold their noses and work for the people most likely to listen and later give them what they want.
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 11/8/2016 @ 8:35 amRemember that the Democratic candidate, as recently as four years ago, was on record opposing gay marriage.
Did she lose any support from progressives over it? Well, maybe back in 2008, when they went for Obama–who was ALSO on record opposing gay marriage and he had HIS conversion at the same time Hillary did.
The power came first, the conversion came later. This is how democracy works, unfortunately. American democracy was imposed on Americans at gunpoint, with tens of thousands of Loyalists exiled and expropriated. That’s your other choice, if you don’t like winning elections.
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 11/8/2016 @ 8:37 amWho is that, specifically, on free trade?
Patterico (3c07f4) — 11/8/2016 @ 8:43 am@Patterico:Who is that, specifically, on free trade?
Who was it on gay marriage? You had to decide who really meant what they said, and who those people had around them and what they thought.
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 11/8/2016 @ 8:48 amGabriel, every single one of these comments begs the question as to the identity of “the people most likely to listen and later give [you] what [you] want.” There is no evidence that Trump is that person. In fact, if the Clintons’ penchant for graft is their defining characteristic (and I think it is), then one could argue that they are more “more likely to listen and give you what you want” than Trump is. You just gotta pay to play.
Leviticus (efada1) — 11/8/2016 @ 9:00 am(Which, of course, illustrates the core flaw of the metric: its lack of virtue)
Leviticus (efada1) — 11/8/2016 @ 9:06 am@Leviticus:begs the question
They don’t “beg the question”. Begging the question is stating a premise as a conclusion. I did not answer the question for you, that is true. But Trump is just one guy, he is not the entire Republican party.
In fact, if the Clintons’ penchant for graft is their defining characteristic (and I think it is), then one could argue that they are more “more likely to listen and give you what you want” than Trump is. You just gotta pay to play.
On the nose. Depends on how much of a single issue voter you are, doesn’t it. The NRA, for example, is single-issue. Everyone knows that the vast majority of the time they support the Republican in a race but if the Republican is worse on gun rights they will support the Democrat.
If free trade is your defining single issue, and you think Democrats are more likely to listen, then form a group devoted to it that delivers votes and money for Democrats.
That’s how democracy actually works, unfortunately, and how it always has.
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 11/8/2016 @ 9:07 am@Leviticus:its lack of virtue
Be as virtuous as you like. But once you engage in politics, you have given up virtue to that extent. You are trying to get power over other people, by definition, when you participate.
There is no Saints and Angels party. If there were, they’d always lose.
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 11/8/2016 @ 9:09 am“Be as virtuous as you like.”
– Gabriel Hanna
I’ll try to be as virtuous as I can, though I’m positive it’ll be less virtuous than I’d like. Voting for either of these people is a no-brainer, virtue-wise. People can grouse about that logic all they want, but virtue ethics aren’t a new invention.
Leviticus (efada1) — 11/8/2016 @ 9:16 am“Begging the question is stating a premise as a conclusion.”
– Gabriel Hanna
I think you’re elevating a premise to the status of a conclusion, even though you don’t want to state the premise affirmatively. I think that counts.
Leviticus (efada1) — 11/8/2016 @ 9:18 amWhy would you be bothering to argue these points, if political pragmatism were an inescapable reality?
Leviticus (efada1) — 11/8/2016 @ 9:25 am@leviticus:Why would you be bothering to argue these points, if political pragmatism were an inescapable reality?
Because I want to see free trade, free markets, and limited government come to pass in reality, instead of being the tolerated enthusiasm of harmless crackpots like libertarians are.
I think you’re elevating a premise to the status of a conclusion
No, I’m making an if-then argument. If you want to see X happen, and the electorate in a democracy does not favor X, then you should do Y. That is all.
You have to work with the electorate and politicians you have. Or you can try armed insurrection.
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 11/8/2016 @ 9:31 amI have seen something else under the sun:
The race is not to the swift
or the battle to the strong,
nor does food come to the wise
or wealth to the brilliant
or favor to the learned;
but time and chance happen to them all.
12 Moreover, no one knows when their hour will come:
As fish are caught in a cruel net,
Leviticus (efada1) — 11/8/2016 @ 9:44 amor birds are taken in a snare,
so people are trapped by evil times
that fall unexpectedly upon them.
@Leviticus: Providence helps those who help themselves, and fortune favors the prepared.
And God said, “Son, I sent you a warning. I sent you a car. I sent you a canoe. I sent you a motorboat. I sent you a helicopter. What more were you looking for?”
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 11/8/2016 @ 9:50 amI’m not sure that the claims above are fully accurate, but for argument’s sake, let us assume so. This is still a thin evidential basis on which to contest the purported argument that [free?] trade makes war less likely.
For a start, trade between Imperial Japan and the US had been curtailed in the lead-up to war. The Anglo-Dutch-American oil embargo was a crucial and immediate factor in Imperial Japan’s strategic calculus to go to war with America. The Japanese government was angry with the US for refusing to sell certain items (petroleum and scrap) to feed Japan’s military industries.
Likewise in National Socialist Germany, trade between Germany and Franco-British partners declined before the invasion of Poland, but for slightly different reasons. The German government sought increased trade relations with other countries (Italy, Switzerland, and Spain) or Axis-leaning countries in the Balkans, while discouraging similar bilateral relationships with Britain and France. This attempt to secure trade relations with less commercially attractive Axis, pro-Axis, or neutral countries was largely the result of Berlin’s inability to sustain any kind of military-oriented autarkic arrangement preferred by Hitler and his circle.
In the case of the Soviet Union and Germany, the former did not trade much with other states to begin with (what little there was tended to take the form of grain exports for industrial plant and machinery). In any case, the Soviets had already been partially embargoed by the US (Russia’s main external source of industrial machinery and expertise) following the Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement, and were later fully embargoed by Washington after the Soviet invasion of Finland (France and Britain made similar arrangements from what I understand). That is to say, the Soviets did not really have any other notable potential trading partners but an increasingly belligerent and expansionist Germany.
(Perhaps an only slightly exaggerated characterisation of Soviet economic relations with Germany prior to Barbarossa is one of a protection racket rather than an agreement in good faith. Rather amusingly, the communist Soviets had to suspend their provision of goods to “capitalist” Germany as Berlin fell behind in its share of the deliveries).
In other words, to put it a bit bluntly: Imperial Japan wanted more trade with America but could not get it; National Socialist Germany did not want more trade with France or Britain and did not accept it; and the Soviets did not have anyone else to trade with.
JP (f1742c) — 11/8/2016 @ 10:24 amThat doesn’t seem very specific, Gabriel.
Say free trade is my issue. What is the name of the person I should vote for, for President, today?
Patterico (3c07f4) — 11/8/2016 @ 12:46 pmNot an easy question to answer as a Trump supporter, is it?
Patterico (3c07f4) — 11/8/2016 @ 1:16 pmWhat is the name of the person I should vote for, for President, today?
The name at the top of the Republican ticket is the one, since right now free trade has a little more support in the Republican party; but actually you could go either way on this.
If free trade, and free trade alone, is your #1 motivating issue which overrides all others. Ff you like say, gun rights, oppose abortion, and want free trade, again you are better off with R, but if you don’t care about those two go with the Ds, you might make headway.
Not an easy question to answer as a Trump supporter, is it?
If this is due to the delay in my response, kindly remember that today is a working day, and kindly remember that I voted Cruz in the primary, thanks.
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 11/8/2016 @ 1:56 pmPatterico, if free trade is your issue, then I think Johnson is probably your man. 🙂
aphrael (3f0569) — 11/8/2016 @ 1:58 pm@aphrael:Patterico, if free trade is your issue, then I think Johnson is probably your man.
Could be. If legal weed is your #1, definitely he is. I think he could get 60 senators to go along with free trade easier than with legal weed though.
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 11/8/2016 @ 2:01 pm@Patterico: But “voting for” is not actually what I was talking about, Patterico. I was talking about “delivering votes for”, in the context of an organization that supports your issues, if you are kind enough to read what I have written as carefully as you demand that I read what you write.
If you can put together an organization that doubles the Libertarian vote in elections you can own that party. But you won’t get much of its agenda passed.
But if you can put together an organization that routinely adds 5% to the D or R vote elections, you will get much more of that organization’s agenda passed.
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 11/8/2016 @ 2:04 pmGabriel Hanna: I think if free trade is your #1 issue, and you’re in favor of it, then Trump, who is the most blatantly anti-free-trade major party nominee of my lifetime, is clearly unsupportable.
aphrael (3f0569) — 11/8/2016 @ 2:10 pm@aphrael: who is the most blatantly anti-free-trade major party nominee of my lifetime, is clearly unsupportable.
He’s only one person in that party. If you want to work to deliver votes to a party, so it will implement your agenda, I think the Republican party is the one to do that for, but as I acknowledged the Dems also have people who are friendly to free trade.
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 11/8/2016 @ 2:17 pmBut see you too are confusing this, I don;t know if it’s deliberate or not. I’m not talking about YOU BY YOURSELF GIVING ONE VOTE. I am talking about DELIVERING VOTES, OTHER PEOPLE’S. And if you want any part of your agenda passed, there’s not much point in GOTV for third parties. Unless you want to own them for some reason, or else you can deliver a majority of the electorate (but if you could do that why are we talking about free trade instead of living it).
Vote for whoever you want, makes no difference. Who you deliver votes for can make a big difference.
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 11/8/2016 @ 2:20 pm